294 Big Game Fisbes 



game had arrived. When I reached the launch 

 the water appeared to be alive with forms dashing 

 about with great velocity. When a handful of 

 sardines was tossed over they charged them from 

 the channel a few feet away, picking them up with 

 great rapidity, then disappearing. Almost the 

 moment a cast was made, almost before the bait 

 was set in motion by the reel, the strike came, and 

 a blaze of color dashed along the surface to the 

 music of the click. Always on the surface, no 

 sulking here, darting this way and that, in and 

 out around the launch, this bonito, the skipjack 

 of the sailors, was the peer of any trout in the 

 world, and only after a struggle was it brought 

 in ; and then one could but regret the capture of 

 so beautiful a fish. It was robed in silver satin 

 below, merging into vivid blue above, with dusky 

 stripes, and over all, flashing and scintillating, an 

 iridescence in pink, blue, and yellow, which made 

 it one of the most charming of the finny dwellers 

 of the Californian sea. The bonito is short and 

 very plump, and when lifted by the gaff or net (the 

 latter is to be preferred, as the fish bleeds badly) 

 it quivers so violently as to impart a disagreeable 

 sensation to one who attempts to hold it by the 

 tail. 



